This invention relates to surface grinding machines, and more particularly, to a machine for honing a pair of precision surfaces on an extruder blade member to a precise selectable included angle between the surfaces.
Extruder blades are used to meter ink from a reservoir onto a resilient surfaced roller in printing press inkers of the type disclosed in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 06/282,294 filed July 13, 1981, entitled "Ink Metering Apparatus With Obtuse Metering Member", now abandoned. The thickness of the ink layer maintained on the resilient surface of the roller is dependent on the angle between the two surfaces on the extruder blade adjacent the roller surface. The uniformity of the ink film thickness is dependent upon the linear trueness of the extruder blade edge between the two surfaces over the length of the blade.
Extruder blades of this type are typically from about ten to forty inches long, but some applications may require blades of up to 80 inches or more in length. The precise requirements for such extruder blades or metering members are discussed in more detail in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 06/282,294, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety for all purposes. This application is assigned to the assignee of the present invention.
Previously, the metering surface and the support surface, which meet to form the metering edge on the blade, were honed by hand methods. The accuracy of such a hand process was susceptible to improvement.